


Kot

by ProjectOrthus



Series: The Weight of Mandalore [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Clan Kryze (Star Wars), Family, Headcanon, Pre-Canon, Protective Satine Kryze, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2, bo-katan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:55:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29530203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProjectOrthus/pseuds/ProjectOrthus
Summary: Kot (Mando’a: strength)There were three Kryze sisters, once. Though her memory of her oldest sister is faint, Bo-Katan holds on to it tightly. After the purge takes everything from her, Bo remembers the day that her sister left for battle and never came back. The first loss to be followed by many, many more.
Series: The Weight of Mandalore [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201613
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	Kot

One of the first things Bo-Katan remembered was her sister. Not the face, no, it was too long ago to remember any faces, but just her presence. Leaning over Bo’s crib, holding out a hand for Bo to take and hoist herself to her feet with. A smile. 

She didn’t know how old her sister was, then. Only that Satine had been eight or nine, and Bo had been a toddler. Their older sister watched over them while their parents dealt with more important matters. And Bo looked up to her like a mother. 

_________

The ports of Naboo were rainy, damp, and always crowded. It had been long enough since the Purge that Bo-Katan and her Nite Owls felt brave enough to launch organized attacks against what remained of the Empire, striking where it hurt before darting back into the shadows. They wore cloaks over their beskar when they traveled, and only put their helmets on when launching attacks. 

There were other Mandalorians out there, Bo knew. The Children of The Watch occasionally sent out bounty hunters, which Bo heard rumours of. Mandalorians who never removed their helmets. To them, Bo’s Nite Owls were dar’manda. Without souls. She tried not to think about them too much. She was sure there were others, somewhere out there. Not Nite Owls and not Children of The Watch, just Mandalorians who had gotten off planet before everything was destroyed.

One thing that she was sure of was that she was the last of her line. Korkie Kryze, her nephew, was killed during the Purge. Bo was the last one left. Her Nite Owl Koska Reeves was a part of Clan Kryze, so she wasn’t alone there, but Bo knew that when she died, the Kryze line died with her. She was the head of a clan of two. Somehow, that made her feel even more alone. 

_________

“Come on, verd’ika!” Bo’s sister stood in the centre of her large bedroom in her beskar, holding a blunt stick. “Hit me.”

Bo-Katan was five, and her sister would be dead within the month. These were her most vivid memories of her. 

She took a step forwards, holding her stick awkwardly, taking a clumsy swing at her sister. She blocked Bo’s swing, giving her little sister a small smile. 

“You must be faster, Bo’ika,” she said. “When you begin your training, I want you to be the best in your class, okay? You must be a credit to the Kryze line! Do better than our Satine, right?” 

Satine had, at that point, started her training. She had never taken to fighting, and was horrified to learn the military history of the Mandalorian people. She called it “senseless violence”, and refused to believe that one day, she would have to fight in a way. Their father was disgusted by her ideals. 

“Try again, Bo,” said her sister, widening her stance. “Remember. Faster.”

___________

“We should slow down,” said Koska. The three of them were sharing a small room in an inn above a bar on Naboo. Bo had been planning their next attack for the past two days. It would be their fifth attack in three weeks. “We’re drawing too much attention to ourselves.”

“You sound like a coward, Koska. Shut your mouth until you’re ready to talk like a Kryze,” Bo was looking over the sheets of paper they had spread out on the small table. There, they had drawn small imperial ship floor plans from memory. She was mapping out a route, double checking it, and testing it in her mind for errors. “Just this one ship, and then we will lay low for the rest of the month. This ship is rumoured to carry important information for the Empire. Not vital, so it won’t be too well guarded. But important enough for us to strike them for it.”

“You haven’t slept in two days,” Koska said. “With all due respect, Bo-Katan, you need enough energy to defend yourself! If we storm this ship tomorrow, you will be killed.”Bo’s head snapped her direction, her eyes furious. She took a step towards Koska. “The moment we slow down is the moment that we lose everything again. The moment that we settled down on Mandalore, accepted that we had achieved peace, the Empire destroyed us! This is war, Koska. We can’t let it happen again.”

__________

Bo-Katan’s sister crouched in front of her, clad in their mother’s beskar, holding Bo’s little hands tightly in hers. She was leaving for war that day, dispatched on a small and relatively safe mission to clear up some conflict, Bo was too young to understand what or where. It was to be her sister’s fifth battle, and from what Bo had heard, she was terrifying on the battlefield. But Bo still worried. She was closer with her sister than she had ever been with Satine, and whenever she was gone, Bo could hardly sleep. 

Her sister’s infant son, Korkie, was being watched over by Satine, whose nurturing instincts seemed to overpower her martial ones. She gladly welcomed the chance to bond with her tiny nephew. Bo’s sister’s husband was accompanying her on the mission, and so, to Bo’s mother, it only seemed right that Korkie was looked after by the Kryze family. 

“Take care of Korkie while I’m gone, okay?” Said her sister, giving Bo and encouraging smile. “Don’t beat him up too badly.”

Bo giggled at the thought of harming her baby nephew. “I won’t,” she promised. “Satine wouldn’t let me.”  
“He’s in good hands with you two,” her sister said. “Some day, you’ll come to battle with me. And if you keep on training like you have been, us two will be a force to reckon with.”

Bo’s eyes grew frightened again as she thought of where her sister was going. “Don’t leave,” she whimpered. “Ni linib’a gar!” I need you. 

“Kot, Bo-Katan,” said her sister, giving her hands a small squeeze. “I will be back soon. I promise. Now I have to go, okay? Take care of Korkie. I’ll be home before you know it. Kot.” 

Kot. Strength. Bo tried to put on a brave face. She nodded, little eyes full of worry as her sister gave her hands another squeeze before standing, giving Bo one last smile, and walking through the doorway of the palace, activating her jetpack and flying off towards the shipyard. Bo-Katan watched her go, the now familiar knot in her stomach growing tighter as her sister disappeared through the buildings for the last time.

The next day, news came of her sister’s death, as well as her sister’s husband. Nearly the whole squad had been taken out in a manner which Bo-Katan wasn’t told. Either way, they were dead. Bo walked into the main hall to see her mother standing in the doorway, a messenger carrying a bag of beskar nearby, looking respectfully away, and her mother weeping, holding her eldest daughter’s helmet to her forehead. She heard Bo enter the room and looked up, eyes full of tears. 

Bo didn’t understand what was wrong. Why her sister wasn’t there. Why a bag of her beskar, covered in dried, cracked blood, now sat on the dining table. All she understood was her mother reaching out to take her hand and speaking one word in a choked whisper, eyes full of pain. 

“Kot.”

___________

Bo-Katan sat on the roof of the inn, overlooking Naboo. It was quiet up there, drizzling slightly. The rain leaked through her suit and onto her skin. Bo focused on the sensation. Cold. Sharp. She breathed steadily, watching the exhalations turn into mist in front of her. 

The night was frigid, but she couldn’t be inside. She didn’t want to talk to Koska or Axe any longer that night. Part of her feared they might convince her not to do the mission. She knew, deep down, that they were right. She should be taking things slowly. But the greater part of her didn’t care. She had lost everything. More than they could begin to imagine. Nothing Bo-Katan had done in her life had worked out until she got the Darksaber, and then the Empire had to rip it away from her and her planet and people with it. To add insult to injury, she had survived. And now she not only had to live with what had happened, but the fact that it was her responsibility to rebuild. 

She began to shiver. Kot. Strength. She willed herself to stop. Outlast. That’s what she always did, right? Outlast her sister. Outlast Pre Vizsla. Outlast Satine. Outlast Mandalore itself. Under her breath, Bo began to sing. 

“Kandosii sa kyr'am ast,Troan teroch jetiise a'den,Duraan vi at ara'nov.Vode an, ka'rta tor.  
Kote.”

Around her, Naboo slept. Light years away, Mandalore smouldered. And above her, the stars shone, and her family looked down on her and watched. Bo-Katan had never felt so utterly alone. 

Kot.


End file.
